Tag: anxiety

Our Chattering Mind

Let’s observe our mind for a few minutes. What does it spend its time doing?

We can imagine it is like a chattering monkey, jumping from one thought to the next. Restless, random and unsettled. It might be in the past, it hops into the future and it is rarely on the present moment.

On challenging days there is a troop of them!

Our mind…

  • Worries – we think about fears both real and imaginary
  • Recalls and relives hurtful things that have happened in the past
  • Lists our to-do items
  • Creates catastrophic ‘what-if’ scenarios for the future
  • Judges whats happening in the present

What can we do about this?

Meditation is a way of training the mind to focus. We can learn to tame this animal mind of ours. This can be done gently without forcing the mind to be a different way.

If we are irritable or angry we accept that this is the way things are in this moment. We notice the thoughts and feelings and give the mind some space. Trying to get in there to fix our mind can often make things worse. It can leave us feeling there is something wrong.

child-meditation

So, we sit patiently with our monkey mind and watch it with a sense of curiosity. We just notice the thoughts and feelings that arise. And most importantly, we do not attach to them…

See Not Attaching to your Thoughts and Emotions

 

Our ‘Survival Mind’

Why does our mind often get stuck thinking the worst?

Back in the days of the caveman, our mind was built for survival. What were we protecting ourselves from and what were we looking out for?

Yes, that’s not a tricky question to answer – it was the potential attack from wild animals! We were at risk of being eaten as we hunted and fished for our food.

So our brain was helpfully designed to look for danger in order to protect us. However, our brain still does this danger reconnaissance today. Which can leave us thinking the worst with a mind plagued by anxiety.

This is why we find it a challenge to stop our mind thinking about possible threats. Even small things – we tend to focus on what might go wrong.

It may only be something tiny that catches our attention… the way a person looks at us, something someone says, not getting something we think we need… and thats it! Our mind is off! We are stuck with these thoughts whizzing around our heads for hours. And our thoughts can dictate our whole day!

And these thoughts can lead to difficult feelings.

We feel stressed, anxious, angry or sad. We find these thoughts and feelings hard to get away from. Sometimes there seems to be no escape.

This is one of the reasons we learn to train our caveman brain or our ‘survival mind’ using meditation. 

We can do this gently without judging ourselves, our busy thoughts and our unsettled emotions. We can do this by focusing our attention using meditation and awareness techniques. We aim to observe our thoughts and let them go by not attaching to them. See Not Attaching to your Thoughts and Emotions if you’re new to this way of thinking.

The Healing Benefits of Music

How do you feel when you listen to your favourite tracks?

Music therapy is a well-established, research-based profession that supports the health and well being of children and adults of all ages. There is now a wealth of research that shows music and sound can reduce anxiety, trauma, stress, depression and manage pain.

Numerous studies have reported promising outcomes with cardiac management, PTSD, Alzheimers, quality of life for cancer patients and neurological impairment such as stroke recovery. Doctors are even prescribing music for some of the disorders.

I use to work with patients with HIV-related cognitive deficits – similar to dementia – at a London hospital. Following my research into the benefits of music with dementia, I decided to start a weekly singing group.

After a few months, many of the patients displayed profound changes in mood, session engagement, communicative attempts such as eye contact, and speech. They also showed less anxiety and agitation, really appearing to love the singing and the music. Two patients produced sounds for the first time in years – a rewarding experience for all involved.

The Lancet recently reported results from a review of 7000 patients who listened to pre-recorded music before, during, and after surgery. They found the experience of listening to music could lower activity in the nervous system, reducing pulse rate, breathing rate and blood pressure. They also found pain, anxiety and the need for pain medication were reduced.

Patients who listened to music in the operating theatre, whilst under general anesthetic also benefited. This prompted the researchers to call for all hospitals to offer personalised music selections to people undergoing surgery.
Science Daily reported on a systematic review, published by the Cochrane Library, which looked at 52 trials with 3731 participants. They found significant evidence that music interventions help alleviate symptoms of anxiety, pain and fatigue in cancer patients whilst improving quality of life.

Oxford University in England reported research on lowering blood pressure. They found slow classical music, which followed the 10-second rhythm had the greatest impact. An earlier study suggested listening to our favourite music can strengthen the heart and improve recovery in patients with heart disease.

Music therapy was noted to improve behaviour in patients with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease. The study reported reduced agitation, irritability, sleep problems and eating difficulties. For the research see Alzheimers, which also reports on Addiction and Depression.

I am passionate about the transformative power of sound healing and use Tibetan bowls and various chime bars in my guided meditation. More on sound healing in my next post…

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